Bobby Bones raises almost $6 million for St. Jude

Austin DJ Bobby Bones and his band The Raging Idiots were joined by some of country music’s biggest stars Monday night at the Ryman Auditorium to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Photo: (l to r) Richard Shadyac Jr., President and CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; St. Jude patients Ian and Kenlie; iHeartMedia radio personality Bobby Bones and Grammy Award-winning country music artist Garth Brooks on stage for $2 million check presentation. (PRNewsFoto/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital)

The Band Perry, Garth Brooks, Brothers Osborne, Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett, Rascal Flatts, Craig Campbell, Lindsay Ell and Caitlyn Smith performed a full night of tunes at the second annual “Raging Idiots Million Dollar Show,” celebrating the past charitable efforts towards St. Jude.

The night ended, however, with another $2 million raised for the hospital after Garth Brooks walked out on the stage to present a $2 million check.

“What I love is this paycheck isn’t going to you, and I know that’s what you love about it, too,” Brooks told Bones, according to The Tennessean.

The first “Raging Idiots Million Dollar Show” was in 2015, put on to celebrate $1 million in donations raised for the hospital. Over the past three years, Bones and iHeart Radio have raised roughly $3.8 million for the hospital. Brooks’ donation Monday night brought the total so far to about $6 million.

Bones, who still lives in Austin part-time after moving out to Nashville in 2013, said in The Tennessean that before he moved to Music City, he thought St. Jude was just “a hospital in Memphis.”

But then he visited the facility.

“I went into this place and I saw all these kids who weren’t sad,” he said. “It’s in Memphis because it’s in the middle of the country and they bring people from all over the country in. If you have a cancer they’re working on, you’re in for free. Once I understood it was more than brick and mortar in Memphis, but a hospital in the middle of the country … for the world, then I really understood and wanted to learn more about it,” he said in The Tennessean.

Bones was also recently featured in a Forbes article that calls him “the most powerful man in country music,” pointing to his charity work and his ability to get airplay for unknown artists as evidence of his clout.

That feature, which touches on some of the same themes explored in Bones’ memoir, also yielded some new interesting quotes from the country DJ:

On his interviewing skills: “I’m the best interviewer in the whole [radio] format. Except for Howard Stern, I’d put myself against anybody.”

On his work ethic: “Basically, I prepare for it and then just freak out until I’m successful. I fail at things all the time. I’m always being told no. I just get back up and try again.”

On his self-awareness of his own insecurities: “I think a lot of what I do are just obvious cries for help. I’m not good at being vulnerable [in intimate settings], but oddly I can do it when I’m in public.”